A new £25m nanotechnology research centre is to be officially opened at Sheffield University next week.

The North Campus site will bring together more than 200 researchers from a wide range of scientific, engineering and medical disciplines.

They will collaborate in various fields of nanoscience, high-tech engineering and virtual reality.

Sir Harold Kroto, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, will be among the guests at Tuesday's ceremony.

The former University of Sheffield student said: "During my lifelong career in science I have benefited greatly from close multi-disciplinary collaboration and I believe it is the right way to approach the emerging nanoscale landscape.

"Such collaboration promotes new insights and fosters new approaches which accelerates research progress and inevitably leads to major scientific breakthroughs."

The facility has been built on a brownfield site - the former Health and Safety laboratory on Broad Lane.